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Bill Galinsky is nuts for cuckoo clocks

Bill Galinsky works on repairing a customer's German 1970 Hubert Herr cuckoo clock. Galinsky, a master cuckoo clock carver and maker, repairs about 200 cuckoo clocks each year. He estimates he makes another couple hundred clocks annually that he ...

www.jsonline.comDecember 26, 2014

The time lords

Cuckoo clocks will have complex gear trains to set birds dancing and bellows to produce the cuckoo sound. Nyenhuis has clocks with wooden gears, clocks with bells and music boxes, and clocks powered by atmospheric pressure in his shop. Many are more ...

www.stalbertgazette.comAugust 23, 2014

I am… Thirunavakarishu Pillai, watch repair man

I learnt how to repair quartz watches from him,” explains Kannan. That came in handy when Kannan But if the customer is willing to bear the cost, I can repair almost any clock or watch, including cuckoo clocks,” he says with pride. Although Kannan ...

www.thehindu.comDecember 4, 2013

Dr George Daniels: 'Watchmaking god's' collection auctioned

Watchmaker Roger Smith, who moved to the Isle of Man in 1988 to work with Dr Daniels, said: "It is the equivalent of one man designing and making every single component of the greatest car the world has ever seen in his garage at home, right down to ...

www.bbc.co.ukNovember 1, 2012

3 Billion-Year-Old Sulfur-Eating Microbes May Be the Oldest Fossils Ever Found

What's the News: Geologists have found fossils of microorganisms from 3.4 billion years ago, which may be the oldest fossils ever uncovered. Since these microbes date from a time when Earth's atmosphere was still oxygen-free, astrobiologists could look ...

blogs.discovermagazine.comAugust 23, 2011

How to Turn a Frog Egg Into a Robot's Artificial Nose

That's because e-noses use quartz rods designed to vibrate at a different frequency when they bind to a target substance. But this is not a foolproof system, as subtly different substances with similar molecular weights may bind to the rod, producing a ...

blogs.discovermagazine.comAugust 24, 2010

Earth Raised up Its Magnetic Shield Early, Protecting Water and Emerging Life

In South Africa, study leader John Tarduno and his team found quartz with iron tucked inside that had remained unchanged in all those years. Using a specially designed magnetometer and improved lab techniques, the team detected a magnetic signal in ...

blogs.discovermagazine.comMarch 5, 2010

Articles

Time stands still in the form of broken watches, clocks and time pieces at this little shop tucked beneath a building beside the busy road that connects Bakery Junction and Vazhuthacaud. The signboard on the shop says ‘Chandra Kumar watch works’. Surrounded by watches, tiny wheels and other instruments of his trade, Kannan is attending to two of his clients who seem to have all the time in the world as they patiently wait for him to finish diagnosing the ills of their watches. My father, B. S. Parameswaran Pillai, had begun it and I began coming to the shop since the age of 10. I was fascinated by my father’s trade,” says 48-year-old Kannan. I was not good in academics and so I decided to learn watch repairing, My father sent me to Parassala to work with an elderly expert in watches. I learnt how to repair quartz watches from him,” explains Kannan. He had worked as the head cook in film units when he decided he had had enough of working for someone. He remembers his father working on branded watches such as Rolex, Favre-Leuba, Longines, Patek Philippe, Omega and so on. Many old-time pendulum clocks were also brought to the shop for repairs. But if the customer is willing to bear the cost, I can repair almost any clock or watch, including cuckoo clocks,” he says with pride. Although Kannan’s shop functions in a rented place, Kannan says his landlord has never troubled him.

Dr George Daniels was the first person in history to make every component of a watch, from scratch and by hand. Now some of the master watchmaker's greatest works are to be auctioned as part of a collection of historically important timepieces he amassed during his life in one of the most eagerly anticipated horological events in recent years. When north London-born Dr Daniels made his first pocket watch in the 1960s many of the skills needed were no longer practised. Traditionally one man would sit down every day and he would make wheels, another skilled craftsmen would make pinions. "There are five trades alone involved in making one pocket watch case and you would have hand makers, dial makers and so on. He did the lot. In a remarkable career spanning 60 years, Dr Daniels dedicated himself to the pursuit of watchmaking perfection. "He was like a god to some people," explained Jonathan Hills, director of Sotheby's clock department and a lifetime friend of Dr Daniels. Internationally revered On 6 November Dr Daniels' private collection of watches and clocks, including several of his own creations, will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in.

What’s the News: Geologists have found fossils of microorganisms from 3. 4 billion years ago, which may be the oldest fossils ever uncovered. Since these microbes date from a time when Earth’s atmosphere was still oxygen-free, astrobiologists could look for similarly structured microbes when searching for extraterrestrial life. I am glad Brasier et al found methods and results that are so much more testable than Schopf et al pattern search. – Strelley Pool formation, the find site, has earlier yielded stromatolites with micro-structures much as testable for bacterial origination. It would be nice if the Strelley Pool and the Nuvvuagittuq results coalesce on the same ancestral metabolism and push it further back in time, it would be a reasonable hope at this stage.

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Dark Star’ gives a look into H.R. Giger’s fantastic but macabre world

The cuckoo clock.” But the alpine ... “founded the genre of extreme metal music. He was born near Zurich,” and, like the painter, projects a Goth persona. Bars, museum and whimsical house of horrors Swiss and foreign aficionados alike flock to ...